Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel Read Free

about every three months so his wrists didn’t stick out like poles, but I’d just gotten him a denim jacket that should last him until Thanksgiving. Okay, maybe Halloween.
    But Chief unfolded a soft, muted-black garment and held it out to Desmond as he climbed off my bike. “Congratulations present,” he said.
    “That is sweet ,” Desmond said, though he, too, looked a little mystified. It was, after all, ninety-five Florida degrees, each one soaked in equal parts humidity.
    Chief motioned with his chin. “What’s sweet is on the back.”
    Desmond turned the jacket around, and I lost control of my emo. Just beneath a full-out screamin’ Harley Davidson emblem, the letters D.C. were embroidered, thick enough for even Ms. Willa to see from a hundred yards.
    It was one of the few times I ever saw my boy without the perfect retort. Chief rescued him by holding out his fist. Desmond didn’t tap it. He threw his arms around Chief’s substantial chest and buried his face.
    That kind of joy was still unfamiliar enough to make me wonder if it really belonged to me.

    Classic II, my Red Hot Sunglo Heritage Softail, purred like a lioness beneath Desmond and me as we followed Chief. He might still walk with a slight limp, which I personally found sexy, but he rode like he and the Harley were one streamlined, bad-dude being. I’d been back on my bike six weeks longer, after my own injury, but I never hoped to handle a motorcycle with that kind of hunky confidence.
    He led us away from the looks-like-any-other-town-in-America cluster of Walmart, Target, and Safeway, and toward the part of St. Augustine that is like no other town anywhere.
    Coquina-sided Spanish-style houses cozied themselves between Greek revival–columned mansions and Victorian-era bed and breakfasts trimmed with gingerbread. Live oaks, bowed under Spanish moss, tunneled streets so narrow a Harley was about the only vehicle a person could drive comfortably on, if it weren’t for the brick pavement that threatened to jar our teeth loose. From the “sissy seat” behind me, Desmond howled his delight with every bounce, maybe with even more abandon than usual. I did a little howling myself.
    As we entered the long sweeping curve of Avenida Menendez that ran along Matanzas Bay, the sunlight glared onto my visor, momentarily blotting Chief from view. Too bad, because the sight of his back pulling denim across his shoulders did it for me like no other. That and his eagle profile. And the raptor eyes that could twinkle with mischief or take my breath right out of my body with their I-know-you-Classic intensity …
    Okay. I needed to concentrate. It would be bad form to dump the kid in the bay the first day I had him.
    Chief continued to lead us toward our turn-off at Cadiz Street. I could almost smell the sun bleaching the pastel walls of the waterfront homes. Plantation shutters were closed, lace-bordered shades pulled down. My black pants and my own denim jacket made me feel like I was wearing a plastic garbage bag. Other women didn’t seem to sweat the way I did. Chief didn’t even sweat the way I did. Desmond had to be dying in leather, though he’d never admit it. I’d be lucky to get him to take that jacket off to go to bed.
    But despite the rivulets trickling between my shoulder blades, I took a long inhale of a peace that was still as foreign to me as heart-bursting joy. Left to my own devices, I wasn’t one for all manner of thing shall be well. My MO was more: When will the other shoe drop? Come on, I know it’s going to . So whenever even my breathing was taken over, I braced myself for the Nudge, the kind that threatened to knock me off the bike if I didn’t take heed. And above the purr of the Classic and the uninhibited yowling of my kid, I heard the whisper that was not my own.
    Go another mile.
    Up ahead, Chief leaned easily into the left turn onto Cadiz, but I stayed on Avenida Menendez. I didn’t argue with the Nudges any more. Didn’t